After that disastrous summer, the Bennets, Fitzwilliams, and Darcys must move on…
XOXOXO
Elizabeth Ann West
Chapter 1 - An Autumn Accord, a Pride and Prejudice Variation
Catherine Bennet stared at the navy blue drapery across the dining room as Lady Matlock’s voice droned on in regard to table settings.
“. . . and so if the lady is a peer in her own right, the precedent still remains with the lady of the realm whose husband holds the higher title — Miss Catherine, are you paying attention?” The Countess of Matlock glared at half her young charges as she called on Kitty.
Georgiana Darcy nudged her friend with her elbow, startling Kitty out of her daydream. Kitty’s distraction had been envisioning the look on her mother’s face when she at last held a leather-bound volume of her story to present. Quickly, the young woman from Hertfordshire attempted to recover from her rudeness.
“I apologize, we were learning about the forks. The fish fork, the meat fork, the salad fork…”
Lady Matlock crossed her arms. “Honestly, your sisters never gave me such trouble. I don’t know why I’m bothering to spend my time –”
“We are appreciative, Aunt Maggie. Kitty was lost but a moment. Perhaps we could take a break and resume later this afternoon? I confess I too am a bit lost about who proceeds whom into a room based on the titles of courtesy.” Georgiana applied to her aunt’s kinder sensibilities.
Suspiciously, the older woman eyed the girls and noticed the indifference both held for the topic at hand. With still six months until either would debut, the grand lady relented. “Oh, you two have convinced me!”
The girls shared a shy smile. “What am I to do when I’m so hopelessly outnumbered?” Lady Matlock gave a conspiratorial wink to her niece.
“Oh thank you! Thank you! I’m utterly famished!” Georgiana pecked her aunt’s cheek and grabbed Kitty’s hand to quit the formal dining room and forget the many place settings they were expected to memorize.
Lady Matlock watched the girls exit the dining room. She did have her own agenda to fulfill this morning. Smoothing her skirts, the grand lady left the formal dining room through the servant’s door and walked down the hallway into the back quarters of the town home. She felt a slight dizziness as she navigated the narrow stairs to the lower levels.
As the servants spied their master’s aunt, all snapped to attention in anticipation the lady was there to find fault. Lady Matlock wandered the kitchens for less than a minute before someone fetched Mrs. Kensington, the housekeeper.
“Milady, what a lovely surprise! Is there anything I may help you with?” No true deference attended Mrs. Kensington’s voice. Although Lady Matlock outranked her, she was still in the employ of Mr. Darcy, not the Countess of Matlock. The kitchens in service of Darcy House were under her purview.
“You are indeed the woman I wished to engage. I am working with the girls to help teach them the proper manners and expectations of a lady of the household, and I was wondering if you might have some time to sit with us and help explain the ways in which the lady of the house works with her housekeeper for menus, household budgets, and the like.” Lady Matlock’s voice smoothed faster than silk. With a plastered smile in place, she sincerely hoped this one would take thebait.
One way or another, Margaret Fitzwilliam determined to uncover who amongst the Darcy staff traded in gossip about the master and mistress away in Scotland. When she arrived unexpectedly a few weeks before, she was dismayed to find Miss Mary Bennet summoned to the house for questioning about the Darcys’ plans. If the culprit interested in such information was who she thought it was, it was well known Lady Catherine de Bourgh would bribe none but the highest rank of servants for espionage.
“Thank you, madame, for the invitation. I confess I am much too busy this afternoon, but perhaps Thursday of this week would suffice?”
“Yes, Thursday afternoon would be lovely. If you have any old notes or examples from Miss Darcy’s mother’s tenure, it would be most welcome.”
The housekeeper nodded and Lady Matlock was relieved to quit the steamy, dingy servant’s quarters of Darcy House. She passed the girls huddling over the post in the morning parlor, finished with their repast, and in finding she had no interest in listening to the raptures of young maidens in their correspondence with other young maidens, she instructed the footman to see to the two girls as she was to take a rest in herroom.
Climbing the stairs to the family apartments, Margaret Fitzwilliam hoped the business keeping the Darcys in Scotland would soon reconcile itself and she could find relief as foster guardian to Georgiana. There was still much to do for her son Richard and Miss Mary Bennet, including a formal agreement between the two. Juggling the lives of so many young people in her charge was becoming tiresome.
Chapter 1(cont'd) - An Autumn Accord, a Pride and Prejudice Variation
In the morning parlor, Kitty traced the edge of the fine linen paper addressed to herself with a return mark of London. She dreaded, yet was anxious to know, the contents of the letter within. For two weeks, she had painstakingly rewritten her manuscript and sent it off to a London publisher of ladies novels. She had not hoped to hear back so soon.
“Well if you shall not read it, hand it to me. I’m dying to know what the publisher said.” Georgiana eagerly extended her hand for her friend’s letter.
Gingerly, Georgiana Darcy pulled open the letter sealed with emerald green wax. Her eyes shifted through the contents and she gasped.
Kitty, with her eyes pinched shut, waited and held her breath. Upon hearing not a word from her friend, she carefully opened one eye. “Well, what is it? What does it say?”
Georgiana released a breath and inhaled to fill her lungs. “We regret to inform you we do not accept unsolicited manuscripts from ladies at this time. It is our practice to work with gentlemen and their appointed agents in the handling of proper contractual obligations. Sincerely yours, Edmond Simon, publisher.”
Kitty snatched the letter from Georgiana’s hands to read over the rejection herself. Her mouth opened in horror and she fell into the chair beside her to complete the dramatic reaction.
As her tears began to fall freely, she crumpled the letter into a ball. Her thoughts raced before she could stop them. “But I worked so hard! They didn’t even have the decency to return the manuscript!”
Georgiana kept her counsel for a moment before an idea sprang forth. “What if . . . what if they thought you to be agentleman?”
“A man?” Kitty ceased her crying thunderstruck at the very idea of impersonating a man.
“How long will it take you to write your manuscript again? If I helped?”
Kitty furrowed her brow and considered the question. “I think each writing two chapters a day, we could finish within a fortnight. I had begun again, out of nerves you see.”
“We must hurry!” Georgiana moved as if she was to leave the room but paused as Kitty called out.
“Wait! I don’t understand. What is this plan?”
Georgiana turned around with her back to the door, her hands poised on the golden knobs. “I’ve seen you, you can copy almost anyone’s hand. We shall send your manuscript again and this time you can sign the letter with my brother’s name. I have plenty of letters for you to practice his signature.”
“We cannot! If he finds out, I’ll be banished forever.” Kitty followed her sister Lydia into much mischief, but the old Kitty was gone. New Kitty was to be an accomplished lady, a lady of writing.
Georgiana shook her head. “They’re still in Scotland for at least another month. If we hurry and write to the publisher again he should write back before Fitzwilliam even returns and we will intercept the letter so he’ll never know.”
Catherine Bennet bit her lower lip and weighed the risk involved with her friend’s plan and the epic reward if the manuscript should be accepted. Her artistic desire won out over her common sense and she nodded her head in agreement to the plan. Georgiana smiled and turned to open the door suggesting they begin right away. As soon as she opened the parlor doors, a footman was there and she nearly ran into him. Both girls giggled nervously, and Georgiana apologized to the servant before clasping Kitty’s hand so they could go upstairs together.
“I’ll have to send for some more paper,” Kitty mentioned as they rushed up the stairs.
“We will both send for more paper so no one will ever suspect anything is amiss. They’ll simply think we’re writing letters!” Georgiana whispered as they quietly tiptoed down thehall.
While Lady Matlock rested, the two young ladies labored meticulously all afternoon, managing to transcribe three chapters each and feeling well on their way to making Catherine Bennet’s novel a published one.
The late-summer sun rested upon the tired shoulders of Colonel Richard Fitzwilliam as he gleefully rode his trusted steed, Hercules. The Colonel and Hercules moved as one entity, an alliance forged on the battlefields of the Continent. The beast deserved as many decorations as his rider.
Richard amused himself by whistling a lively Irish aire as he slowed Hercules to a mere trot. Traveling to Somerset to inspect the promised estate of Grover Downs with his father, Richard had forgotten how slowly his father liked to travel. A trip of this length, for him and Darcy no more than two days there and back, was already on day four. Another five miles and the old man would insist they stop once more for anotherrest.
In frustration, Richard reached up and batted an errant twiggy branch already surrendering to autumn’s rusty brown on the edges of the leaves. A military man through and through, a plush carriage for too long would spoil his rugged nature and at the last inn he had released Hercules to run free for a spell. Lazily slowing the horse to a walk around a bend in the road, a crossroads appeared in the distance.
As the duo approached the major road crossing, Hercules’ ears twitched.
“Easy now, easy now. I don’t care for the feel of it either.” Ever the cautious man, Richard straightened in the saddle and held the reins exclusively in his left hand with his right ready to pull his saber. Shrubbery on the northern side of the road shook unnaturally. Hercules snorted and his ears popped into a rigid stance.
“Steady, steady as we go,” the Colonel said softly. He resumed his whistling and continued to feign indifference wondering if whoever was hiding in the shrubbery was careless enough to take on one of His Majesty’s Finest.
Ten feet from the crossroads, a man stood from the shrubs with a pistol aimed straight at Richard.
“Give me your purse and your horse and –” the man bent slightly towards the bushes below him for assistance in making his demands.
With anger boiling in his blood, the Colonel spurred Hercules into action, drew his sword, and expertly sliced at the hand holding the pistol as his horse barreled past. The man screamed out in pain as Richard’s sword had severely maimed, but not taken the hand completely.
“The sword! He has a sword!”
Richard turned Hercules around with expert horsemanship and with his sword raised galloped back towards the shrubs ready to charge again. The bleeding man had more wits about him this time and dove back into the shrubs.
Galloping past the shrubs, the Colonel pulled back on his reins and signaled again for Hercules to turn. Standing over the thick bushes, Hercules snorted and stomped his hooves in a match of his master’s frustration.
WHAT A DEAL!
A kiss at the Netherfield Ball . . .
Three Dates with Mr. Darcy is a bundle of: An exclusive story, Much to Conceal, a novella that imagines what if Elizabeth confessed to Jane in London that Mr. Darcy proposed in Kent?
A Winter Wrong, the first novella in the Seasons of Serendipity series that imagines what if Mr. Bennet died at the very beginning of Pride and Prejudice?
By Consequence of Marriage, the first novel in the Moralities of Marriage series that wonders what if Mr. Darcy never saved his sister Georgiana from Wickham’s clutches?
Elizabeth Ann West’s Pride and Prejudice variations have enthralled more than 100,000 readers in over 90 countries! A proud member of the Jane Austen Fan Fiction community since the mid-2000s, she hopes you will join her in being happily Darcy addicted!
Chapter 1(cont'd) - An Autumn Accord, a Pride and Prejudice Variation
“Arise you cowards or I will trample the bush, so help me. Come out and I shall not kill you.”
Two men wearing shoddy clothing and dirty faces hastened from the bushes with one holding his arms up and the other cradling his arm against his chest. The injured knave whimpered with tears streaming.
“Two? Two! Where are the others?” The Colonel demanded an answer, whipping his head around to check his flanks. Surely there were more criminals to hold such a well-used meeting of the four directions of a compass.
“What others, sir? Just be me and Jim,” the surrendering highwayman explained, hoping not to anger the soldier and receive his own injury.
“Do I look thick to you? This is a major crossroads. There must be more of you, carriages roll through here.”
The injured one spoke up with a tremor to his voice. “They’s took the back roads, sir. There be a carriage behind you and we’s two was left here for any single riders about.”
At mention of a carriage, the Colonel panicked. It might be his father’s carriage and while Richard was a military man able to defend himself, his father was hardly a decent shot with a good musket aiming at injured prey. Leaving the two weasels arguing on the side of the road, Richard spurred his horse to action with a fast gallop back the way he had come. Cursing for riding so far ahead of the carriage, Richard’s mind played horrors of the battleground as he imagined his father and his men dying on the side of the road.
Richard came upon the carriage to find it was stopped and there were scuffles broken out on the backside between the ruffians and his father’s men. The air was filled with pistol smoke, but it appeared all present were out of ammunition. The Colonel pulled his own pistol from the side of his saddle and with expert marksmanship rode Hercules within striking distance of the struggle between the driver and his attacker, aimed, and shot true into the shoulder on the highwayman prevailing against poor Gibbons.
The Fitzwilliam servants cheered at the sight of young Master Richard riding in his regimentals to help turn the tide. Two highwaymen yanked and fought to open the carriage door where Richard assumed his father was residing. Turning Hercules around, he charged the beast once more with his sword held high and slashed one of the men clear in the chest. The other let go of the door and scampered back as Richard pulled his sword free and swung it high over his head. Hercules performed his familiar stomping and snorting making the highwayman on the ground crawl backward, trying to avoid the horse’s hooves.
“Father! Father! Are you unharmed?”
The carriage door jiggled, but the other highwayman Richard mortally wounded was still slumped against the door, gasping his last breaths. Richard shouted orders at Gibbons and the last remaining armed guard apprehended the fourth robber at the front of the carriage. The Earl of Matlock shoved his carriage door open, heaving the body of the slain highwayman to the side, poking his head out.
“I am unharmed, son. What made you return?”
Richard steered clear of the highwayman prostrate on the ground, begging for his life. The law would not spare him. “Two irksome members of this gang attacked me a few miles up the road at the cross. When I asked where the rest of their motley friends were, for surely two men would not stand much luck in attacking a carriage, they mentioned a carriage as their prize.” Richard wiped his blade on the dead man’s coat and once satisfied, returned it to his sheath. He reached into his coat for another musket ball and powder to reload his pistol.
Once the two surviving highwayman were secured to the back of the carriage, the Colonel addressed Gibbons’ wounded right arm. With bandages tied tightly around his bicep to staunch the bleeding, the old driver protested he was perfectly able to continue driving the ten miles to the next inn.
Richard checked over Hercules for any signs of injury, and seeing none, returned the horse to the post-position. “Nonsense, you are injured in service for my father. You will ride inside the carriage with him and I will drive the carriage to the inn.”
“But Master Richard –”
Richard held up his hands and hushed the man he’d known his entire life. So fueled with anger, riding in the fresh air was still preferable to lounging in the finely upholstered carriage with his father. Leaving the body of the dead highwayman behind, the Matlock carriage slowly continued down the road with its substitute driver ready to defend at the slightest provocation.
You’ve been reading An Autumn Accord
The fourth season of the Seasons of Serendipity and conclusion of the first year sees Elizabeth and Darcy reconcile the consequences of their honeymoon trip in Scotland with their family’s future. Kitty Bennet and Georgiana Darcy have bonded over their training for debut in society, plus found a bit of mischief to create. When Darcy decides to help his wife mourn the one-year anniversary of her father’s passing with a trip to Hertfordshire, he finds a whole new set of problems await them both regarding the widow Bennet.
An Autumn Accord Book 4 of the Seasons of Serendipity
a Pride and Prejudice novella variation series
Release Date: February 26, 2015
~190 pages in print.
+ 23 additional Pride & Prejudice variations are available at these fine retailers . . .
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A Jane-of-all-trades, mistress to none! Elizabeth Ann West is the author of 8 novels and 11 novellas, 18 of which are story variations of Jane Austen’s Pride & Prejudice.
Ms. West, I couldn’t determine the appropriate place to leave this question, so please indulge me. What is the proper order of the
The Moralities of Marriage series? I’m anxious to start reading and of course would like to start at the beginning. Thank you.
Each of my books has a list of “Books By Elizabeth Ann West” and put series books in order. 🙂 The order for Moralities of Marriage though are By Consequence of Marriage, A Virtue of Marriage, The Blessing of Marriage, The Trappings of Marriage, and The Miracles of Marriage. Book 6 is the Heart of Marriage and there might be a book 7 yet to be titled since the story sort of grew on me as I was writing it. 🙂